


Midnight in the Middle of the Ocean

by RoeOcean



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Care of Magical Creatures, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, I think I figured out why Credence and Nagini are friends in the first place, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 21:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17108564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoeOcean/pseuds/RoeOcean
Summary: Nagini first meets Credence when the circus picks him up at a port in New York on the way to their home grounds in France. She wants to learn more about him, and discovers that something they have in common could change the course of her entire life, if she decides to follow him.





	Midnight in the Middle of the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



When Nagini crept aboard the deck to the massive ocean-liner that would be the circus’s home for the next month as they traveled back to France, she didn’t expect that she would have to baby-sit the new recruits. They had picked up a few performers, some freaks and more creatures, at the port in New York. Most of them, the humanoid ones at least, could take care of themselves or had handlers to train, feed, and cage them. There was one newcomer, however, that the ringmaster entrusted to her.

“You show him the ropes. I’ve got other things to attend to.” The ringmaster scowled and stomped off, leaving a lanky, sallow boy with a sullen face by the doorway to her cabin.

Nagini uncurled from her roost, dropping sleekly to the unsteady, tilting floor. She was wearing her dressing gown and what passed for a slip, with no shoes or stockings to speak of.  The only other piece of clothing she “owned” was her costume, and it was uncomfortable to relax in, let alone sleep. When the boy saw her sparse accoutrement, his pale cheeks flushed with color. He held his hands over his eyes in what she thought was a childish, but sweet, gesture.

“You’ll get used to the way people dress in this business. A lot of the ladies wear clothing like this, or less,” Nagini said softly, approaching the boy on light feet. Despite his height, he was hunched a little at the shoulders, and his hair was cut as a school child’s might be. His pants were unhemmed and unclean, three inches too short. His jacket and shoes were worse. Nagini wondered what his story was.

He was still covering his face, and he didn’t respond to her gentle observation. She wanted to reach out to touch him, to ease his eyes open, but refrained. She knew how to coax frightened creatures into calmness. All she had to do was be patient, and kind.

“What’s your name?”

He peeked through his fingers, and when he saw how close she was, snapped them shut again. A timid, tentative voice answered her question. “I’m Credence. I’m sorry, I don’t speak French very well.”

Oh. That might make things a little difficult. Nagini frowned. She knew French, Spanish, Portuguese, some dialects of Chinese, Korean, German, Polish, and she was learning Italian from one of the strongmen who had joined a few months ago. From the boy’s accent, she thought he was American and probably only spoke English. Nagini had yet to pick up much English from her time here; the circus mostly traveled through continental Europe (though they had been in Brazil for the last several weeks) and their stop in New York had been for supplies, not a prolonged show engagement.

Still, she brightened at the opportunity to add to her growing list of tongues. English should be easy, as it borrowed from many other languages she already knew. She wondered if that was why the ringmaster had left Credence with her; he knew she had a penchant for such things and often turned her into his personal translator when he needed help with the locals.

Credence must know a little bit of French already though, as he had told her his name, and his accent was thick but perfectly understandable. Nagini smiled.

She said in French, “Welcome to your new home, Credence. I’m Nagini. I hope I’m able to serve you well.”

***

He didn’t have many belongings, just a sack with an extra pair of socks, a comb, and a hogs-hair toothbrush. He wouldn’t look at her for longer than two seconds until she borrowed someone’s cotton dress. It was thin and green and fell to her ankles, but he seemed to relax a little more after she put it on. She remarked that it was cute that he seemed embarrassed by her nakedness, but he didn’t understand.

They walked around the ship, and she showed him the people and the equipment being put to use on the upper decks, using the little English she knew to help him get adjusted. They (or rather, she) stopped to chat with the circus folk along the way in the myriad of tongues she knew. Credence was mostly quiet, but he nodded at her explanations and did not ask for clarifications, and smiled here and there. Nagini rather liked his smile. It was small and sweet, like the young boy she imagined he used to be.

After a while of roaming around, she asked him, “Would you teach me English?”

When he stared blankly at her, she tried repeating her request in English and hoped for the best.

“Oh,” he said, “I don’t know. I’ve never taught anyone before.” His French was halting and unsure, but she noticed that he was looking into her eyes as he spoke. She liked that.

“I’m a fast learner. It’ll give us something to do while we’re at sea.”  

Credence considered, and finally said, “Okay. We can try.”

***

The ringmaster hadn’t told Nagini specifically which part of the circus Credence was working for, but the boy assured her it had something to do with the magical creatures. So she brought him to the bowels of the ship. When they entered the cargo hold, a hot blast of foul-smelling air greeted them, and they covered their noses. A row of crates and cages were chained to the metal rings welded the floor. A lot of them had burlap sacks strapped over their bars, enclosing the animals in darkness. Many would sleep through the journey. It was too dangerous to take out some of them to be walked or played with in such a tight space. Maybe the little ones and the gentle ones, but certainly not the beast Nagini had seen being hurried into a crate back in Brazil.

As soon as they entered the “menagerie,” Credence’s mood seemed to change. His posture straightened and the worry in his brow melted away. He ran his long, pale fingers across the burlap-covered bars of a few of the larger cages, and didn’t shrink away when answering growls warned of the creatures within. Nagini followed him, trailing slightly behind, keeping to the center of the aisle instead of the far left, as her ward was doing.

Credence began lifting up the flaps of some of the smaller enclosures, and Nagini was surprised and highly amused when he started cooing and speaking to the animals in his native tongue. A couple chittered back at him, and to Nagini they sounded frustrated from being woken, but Credence only chuckled at their noises and replaced the coverings.

Nagini realized that she hadn’t heard him laugh in the few hours that she’d known him, and it was such a quiet, clear sound that it made her giggle too. Credence glanced back at her and seemed mildly taken aback to see her smiling. A blush dusted his cheeks and he faced forward again, moving on to the next cage to check in on its occupant.

“You must adore animals, Credence. I think you will be a great help to the trainers.”

She knew he couldn’t have understood all of that, but maybe it was the cadence of her voice that prompted him to respond with a soft, “Thank you.”

“Have you had much practice caring for magical creatures?”

Credence stopped at a hanging lantern and peered inside of it. A smoky wisp perked up when his finger touched the glass, and it blew a ring of ash. Nagini saw his lips quirk, and then he answered, in slow and broken French, “I told the master I have. That’s why he let me come on the ship. In truth, I know very little. But I think I will learn quickly, as you do with languages. How many do you speak?”

Nagini was pleased that he wanted to know. “A fair number, around 12. And I’m always looking for more.”

“You shall have English, if you want it. I am thinking about how to teach you.”

She was thrilled. “Well, I usually start with the small things, like the alphabet, numbers, and basic verbs and nouns…”

Credence was nodding, even though she couldn’t be sure how much he understood and how much he was just absorbing, storing away for future use. She wondered if he wanted to get more acquainted with French. He was going to be living with a majority of Francophones, after all. And if he was staying for a while, he should get to know people. This gave Nagini pause.

She watched as Credence walked on, coming to the end of the row. A large, empty cage stood silent in a dark, dank corner.

Nagini was curious about something. Normally she wouldn’t ask this of anyone who decided to join the circus, as most had a tale to tell and more had secrets, but she felt that she ought to know. Something deep inside her had to ask.

“Why did you choose this job? You spoke to the master, he must have told you we’re based in France. If I were not here, what would you have done?”

Credence swung the cage door open, and it creaked on its hinges. He spoke quietly, in English, but she tried to listen, to understand. “I was glad to hear you were going to France. I need to go there. I am grateful that you want to learn English; then I may have someone to speak to. I also would like to know more French.” He swallowed, and closed the door, though still looked wonderingly at it. He rubbed its recently oiled bars. Switching back to French, he asked, “This is the only bare enclosure?”

She nodded. “It is used to house… a creature during certain performances. It is not needed during the voyage.”

He turned to look at her with some mixture of surprise and faint alarm. “Where is the creature?”

Nagini smiled. “Here.”

If possible, his eyes widened even further. They were as large as saucers.

“Where?”

The boy was going to find out eventually; everyone did, and they hardly treated her any differently. They were all freaks in their own way, and they did not chafe at blood curses. The ringmaster had even talked of getting a werewolf one day.

“I am the creature.”

Credence started, and his mouth opened a little bit. Nagini could do nothing but look at him, waiting for his reaction beyond pure shock, which did not seem to be coming. Finally, he closed his mouth and began nodding to himself. It was not the typical thing to do, but then, Nagini thought Credence must be a very special type of person.

“Forgive me if I’m too forward, but may I ask what manner of being you are?”

There was a term for it, a latin term that few people were familiar with.

“Maledictus.”

His face remained blank, though confusion knit his brow. He did not appear to know the meaning.

Nagini explained, “I can turn into a snake at will, but I’m not an animagus. Someday, I won’t be able to return to my human form again.”

Understanding dawned on Credence’s face, and it made him look so young. She waited. She didn’t tell him about the rest of her curse’s horrors. He did not need to know.  

“I see. I’m sure people have said this to you, but I am sorry.” He hesitated, thinking. His fingers traced the oily bars of the cage. Then a hard look set his face, and she knew he had determined something incredibly important. “I am...also… a creature.”

Now it was Nagini’s turn to gape at him, to wonder at his true nature. She briefly thought he was going to confess to being a maledictus too, before ruling that absurd. The curse only affected women.

“You are…?”

“An obscurial.”

She did not know the word, but it sounded as if it had latin roots. She stood still, barely breathing, anticipating his explanation. But it did not come.

“Does the master know?” Will he use you was the unspoken undercurrent to her question.

“I did not tell him.”

Nagini let out a breath, slowly. She stepped closer to Credence, who flinched when she came near. “Can you control it, when you…”

“N-no. And I think I am like you. I do not know if I will someday cease to exist as a person, and just live as… that thing.”

They stood there for a few minutes, breathing, each lost in their own thoughts. Nagini had never known another witch or wizard with a condition similar to her own curse. And it sounded as if the creature he became was more dangerous than a snake. Many questions ran through her mind, each tripping over the next, fear and joy and a little seed of love. Deeper than love. Understanding, and the feeling she had wanted but had not experienced in quite a long time. Belonging. Togetherness.

Nagini asked only one more question, an echo of an earlier one that had not been answered properly. But now that she knew a secret part of him, and was at least beginning to figure out who he was, she thought he would be more open and honest about his intentions.

“Why are you going to France, really?”

“To find my mother.”

***

That night, when Nagini and Credence retired to their cabin along with a dozen other performers and circus crew, a terrible storm caused the ship to rock and buck violently for hours. They were near the middle levels of the great ocean-liner, so it wasn’t as bad as being in the bowels of the cargo hold, but it made for restless sleep. She couldn’t help thinking of the poor creatures in their cages. She wondered if Credence was doing the same.

He was right below her in a hammock that had no previous occupant. His sack of belongings was tied to the foot of the rope suspending the canvas, and she could hear it thudding against the metal walls rhythmically.  

Nagini clutched the sides of her hammock as a particularly fierce roil tossed the ship among the waves, but it didn’t matter how strong her grip was. The berth swung too far and flipped over, and she fell directly onto Credence.

“Oof!” he wheezed as all of the air was pressed out of his lungs.

“Sorry!” Nagini whispered, and attempted to sit up, but another shudder passed through the ship, tipping the hammock. She hugged him to keep herself from sprawling to the floor.

He was very warm, she noticed as she laid her head against his chest. Credence had taken his shirt off sometime after they had gone to sleep, but his pants were still there. She could feel the rough fabric through her slip as she slowly eased her leg down his calf. It was cool in the cabin, but not cold, so no blanket separated the bare skin of his chest from her face.

“Nagini…?” Credence breathed, sounding a little winded still. He spoke in English, quietly, his sleepy voice pitched high. “What are you doing?”

“I fell,” she said simply, conjuring the English words from somewhere in the back of her mind. “There’s a storm. My berth isn’t stable, I’m sorry.”

 "O-oh.”

The ship shook again, and the hammock rocked with it. Nagini pressed herself closer to Credence, willing their combined weight to steady the canvas. She shifted, trying to get more comfortable. She could probably roll over to squeeze in next to him, but worried about the balance. She was a little lighter than him.

“I would go back to my own spot, but I’m afraid this might happen again. Can I stay here?” Nagini hoped he would catch the meaning alright. She didn’t know all of the English words to convey the context properly.

“C-can you stay here?” Credence repeated in French, breathless and bewildered.

Nagini lifted her chin. It was hard to see in the darkness, but her ward was staring at her in such a state of panic that she thought something must be wrong. She brought her hands up to his face to feel his cheeks. They were burning with blood.

“Are you okay?” she said in his native tongue. She dragged herself up his body to get a closer look at him. In the process, she felt something hard brush against her thigh, and immediately stopped moving. That couldn’t be what she thought it was. She began to inch her hand down to feel it when Credence grabbed her wrist.

“I-I-I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I can’t… please don’t…”

Oh. So it was his erection. That—that is fine, she told herself.

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” she said aloud, and carefully edged back down to his chest, bringing her arms around him again. His cock remained hard and hot, pressed now on her stomach, and she did not move in order not to excite it further.

They remained still and silent for some time, though the ship’s powerful motions forced Nagini to adjust her hold on Credence every so often. Eventually, his breathing evened out, but his erection just wouldn’t go away. It was like having an unpleasantly hard hot water bottle stuck against a spot where she did not need it to be. It was getting kind of uncomfortable, so she shifted—

Credence gasped, and she felt it. Warm and wet, too liquid to be absorbed by his pants or her slip. It cooled quickly, and his cock softened to the point where she could not feel it anymore.

“S-sorry,” he whimpered, sounding almost as if he were on the verge of tears. “I couldn’t control it. Please don’t hate me.”

That’s what he had been trying to say before, she thought.

Nagini hugged him tightly. “It’s fine. Now, let’s sleep. I think the storm is finally calming down.”

In the morning, she would tell him. His little crush on her didn’t change her feelings. She had decided before, while they were feeding the creatures and cleaning their cages, and then eating the small dinner they were allowed. She would help him find his mother.

With that last thought glowing in the front of her mind, they slept through midnight in the middle of the ocean.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! And thanks for the prompt, Val! I've never written bed-sharing before, but it's good to use in anything! I hope you like the story! I tried keeping the racism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism/misogyny to a minimum.
> 
> Since it is the 1920's, I think it's quite possible that Nagini, who I'm assuming has traveled with the circus for some time, wouldn't know a lot of English if the circus is primarily based in France and continental Europe. I gave her the gift of of being a polyglot as a nod to her traveling around so much, and in anticipation of her curse rendering her only able to speak an ancient, non-human tongue for the rest of her foreseeable life. It makes sense to me that she would want to learn as many languages as possible before that happens. God I wish she had more characterization. I really hope the films make more use of her in the future. 
> 
> Credence knows a little bit of French because he learned it at muggle school, and also I think he did a little bit of research on his own before hopping on a boat to France. I like to think that all of the scenes in the movie taking place in France had him and Nagini and whoever else they were interacting with speaking in French. 
> 
> I wish the movies had done more code-switching, because Paris didn't really feel like Paris to me. Sure, there were signs in French, but I highly doubt that many of its citizens are super fluent in English. I can't remember if Newt & co ever had to navigate using French at all. 
> 
> I think I figured out why Credence and Nagini became friends! They're both cursed magical beings who will someday become permanently non-human! I can't believe I didn't consider that before, but I realized it when I was writing this piece. I'm not sure how an obscurial feels when it's in its angry, black sand cloud form, but I don't doubt it's nothing close to human. Just like a snake! Well, something like that. In any case, that is quite a strong bond that they can build upon. 
> 
> There is a tiny bit of unrequited romance in here, because that's my personal style. I'd like to imagine that Credence starts out with a crush on Nagini and she develops romantic feelings for him... possibly never, but also maybe someday? Who knows. In the film they seemed like friends to me. However, in this story I suppose Nagini already has budding feelings of friendship and protection towards Credence, and he also feels those towards her, but also she makes him sweat. In other words, he does have a crush on her, but she just wants to be friends for now.


End file.
